Category Archives: CARB

Say what you want about Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but even the proverbial stopped watch is right twice a day. Looks like Dr. Hansen finally has one correct idea, at least as far as the usefulness of cap and trade is concerned. We wonder if this is the result of shock therapy.

Speaking at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club he had the following to say:

The system, in which companies buy and sell permits to produce greenhouse gases, is a “half-baked” and “half-assed” way to deal with global warming, Hansen said.

His comments Tuesday were typically blunt. Cap and trade, he said, does little to cut emissions. But it does enrich the trading desks of banks, who have a new market to explore.

“Why do you want big banks in this problem?” Hansen asked. “Why should they be making money? Every cent they make is coming out of the public’s hide. And they add absolutely nothing. What you want is a system which is very simple and makes things cleaner.”

No, he didn’t do a 180 degree flip on global warming, but at least he gets the idea that the cap and trade system is a ripoff and basically doesn’t do much except ripoff the general public and make bankers fat, AKA: Bend forward in the name of Gaia. At least him making these statements is one step in the right direction.

It also appears he neglected to mention that no matter how it’s administered, cap and trade is a glorified tax that greedy states like California will grab under the pretense of saving us all from global warming and then misuse it on other “half-assed” schemes.

The best part of this is he said it all in front of California Governor Jerry Brown who’s no doubt salivating at getting California’s hooks into that money. Jerry just loves cap and trade. What greedy government official wouldn’t?

This should be titled “A big car for a big hypocrite.” Why? Because Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hypocrisy evidently knows no bounds.

When he was the Governator (evidently he must have thought this was an acting job), he stuck the citizens of California with what is known as Assembly Bill 32: the Global Warming Solutions Act. A nefarious plan to suck money out of the bank accounts of California citizens and businesses via a cap and trade program. You can click the link above and read for yourself.

The end result will be that if you buy anything in California the price will be going up as when the price of gas and diesel rises, so does everything else as it’s all delivered by truck. You can bet CARB will be costing the refineries and trucking companies a lot of money buying carbon credits and making them file a 50 page report, in triplicate, every time someone farts at work.

Let’s not forget this isn’t going to be good for the job market in California either. If price of goods and doing business goes up businesses will have less of those dollars to spend on hiring and expansion. This, in our humble opinion , could also drive even more business out-of-state and cause more bankruptcies.

Meanwhile, after screwing everyone in the state, what does the Hypocriteanator do? Oh, he buys a huge Mercedes Unimog! A gas hog par excellence, that should probably have its very own cap and trade program set up. A little research shows that on Unimog forums most claim to get about 15-16 miles per gallon. Certainly not in Prius territory. Not to mention they’re diesels, emitting soot, another no-no for the do-gooder greentard crowd. Let’s not forget Arnold likes to fly private jets all the time, too. Spewing out more of that carbon he’s so ‘worried’ about.

As such, we are awarding Arnold the one-fingered CO2 Insanity salute for Hypocrite of the Month.

It appears us deniers or skeptics were right. People like the Goracle, Pachauri, Hansen and others of the warmer persuasion have been passing off BS as scientific fact. It appears the gullible, all over the globe have been falling for it, too! We won’t hold our breath waiting for anyone to snap back into reality. We’re sure the BS will continue and the idiots at the EPA will continue to use Global Warming as a tool to get their way, regardless if it’s based upon reality or not. California, no doubt will continue to implement the AB32 law that creates a carbon trading fiasco. After all, it’s really about the money, not pollution. Read all the sordid details at the source below.

Solar panels, touted by many to be a renewable energy panacea that will rid the planet of all those nasty coal-fired power plants, may be a bigger boondoggle than we already thought. We’ve already complained that they do not appear in many instances to provide a return in investment.

It now appears that the time they provide energy before replacement is required is dramatically less than claimed. Thus shortening not only the life of the panels and the electricity generated, but also reducing the return on investment.

If you listen to the mostly-Chinese manufacturers, solar panels work great. They can be expected to degrade about 0.5% a year. So that is how we build the economic models to finance, insure and subsidize the larger solar systems.

In the real world, we are just starting to find out how bogus many of those predictions are. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory says that panels can degrade as much as 4.5% a year. Or more. Put that in your pro forma and see what your banker and insurance agent — or Congressman — say about that.

While we see claims that average solar panels will last 25 to 30 years, the aforementioned claim of 0.5% per year means that solar panels should last an astounding 200 years (100% ÷ 0.5%). At the realistic rate of 4.5% per year they will only last about 22 years before replacement is needed (100% ÷ 4.5%), which is not even the 25 to 30 currently claimed by many and not even remotely close to 200 years.

It gets worse folks. They don’t only degrade, it appears they also can literally fall apart and it doesn’t take very long.

In Italy last year, “they discovered that after one year in the field, over 90% of the (solar panels) from a one megawatt project began to delaminate and ended up on the ground.”

That is a lot of wasted money. 90% down the tubes after being used for only one year. No return on investment and very little ‘free’ electricity generated. All that is left is an eyesore that is a pile of toxic waste, wasted tax dollars and perhaps a tax deduction for a business loss.

We are adverse to the lies about what renewable energy costs and what it’s capabilities are. We’re also adverse to the physical and financial messes left when solar and wind-power are abandoned. We’re extremely adverse to the rush to install solar and wind-power without having full knowledge about the effects. Look at the carnage left in the previous two links to see what we’re talking about.

California seems to be leading the rush off the proverbial cliff via the implementation of AB32, California’s cap & trade law, that mandates power providers to generate 33% of their power from renewable (green) sources by a not too distant 2020.

With many large solar projects planned in California, it would seem to be a logical move to slow down and find out what our money is being spent on and what the return on investment will be as opposed to rushing in head first, only to find another government mandated, costly boondoggle. To know what happens to government mandated boondoggles one only has to look at the Solyndra and Evergreen Solar fiascos.

You can safely bet that when these solar energy plants fall apart at the seams, the taxpayers and energy consumers of California and other states will get stuck paying for the bill. It’s probably also a safe bet that the messes left at abandoned solar and wind farms will be there for decades as a reminder of what happens when the government gets involved in what should be private enterprise.

Well, current Governor “Moonbean” and ex-governor “Governator,” here are some more “green” jobs California won’t see. Contrary to the belief’s of your Church of Global Warming, businesses are not jumping for joy about creating “green” jobs in California, but they do seem to be jumping for joy to create them anyplace and everyplace else.

In case you are both still unaware, there just aren’t a whole lot of people who are very excited about doing business in California anymore. Why should they when they can go elsewhere and have lower taxes, fewer regulations, less traffic, lower cost employees and cheaper land to build factories upon?

Today’s bad news for California is that Calisolar, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, just got a $275 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy to build a new factory to make silicon for solar panels. Is this money going to be spent in California? Will this money create those “green” jobs you two and other greentards keep touting? Ummm…..no….it’s going to be built in Ohio. Gee, I wonder why? Couldn’t be things like taxes, over-regulation and high operating costs could it?

So, what’s Ohio’s gain and our loss? According to Brighter Energy……..

Calisolar estimates that the facility will generate, at its peak, nearly 1,100 permanent jobs and up to 1,000 construction jobs.

That is approximately 2,100 people in California who are losing out due to the draconian conditions created by our Taxocrats in Sacramento. Will they ever wake up and smell the coffee? Do they ever think of the unemployed who may work, the taxes that could be paid, the reduction in unemployment checks paid out and the healthcare plans that people could again have. Yes, our current crop of elected Taxocrats continue their failure to grasp the simple concept that businesses don’t want to be in the bad business environment they have created and that no business equals no tax revenue.

Think that’s bad? Well, there’s more in today’s news about California and specifically the San Francisco Bay Area, that does not bode well for the employment environment.

Not only will we not be seeing the estimated 2,100 jobs that could be had if Calisolar put this manufacturing plant here, but per the June 18, 2011 Contra Costa County Times, we have even more bad news on jobs here……..

The Bay Area lost 2,000 jobs during May, the East Bay shed 1,700 jobs and the South Bay lost 1,400 jobs, the Employment Development Department reported. California lost 29,200 payroll jobs last month. The numbers were adjusted for seasonal changes.

Now I don’t know who’s adjusting what (perhaps GISS created this report?), but 1,700 + 1,400 = 3,100, not 2000. The above also doesn’t seem to report the West or North Bay either. Perhaps they didn’t lose any jobs, which I find hard to believe. Regardless, that’s a significant number of lost jobs, as is the California grand total of 29,200.

Take the 2,100 people Calisolar won’t be hiring here plus the 3,100 lost jobs in May and that is 5,200 killed jobs in the San Francisco Bay Area alone.

All I can say is way to go guys and gals in Sacramento. Put more people out of work, increase the strain on the state budget and decrease the amount of tax revenue. How long before California goes broke? If they keep this up, not long. I guess they think they’re on a roll or something. Trouble is Sacramento is rolling in reverse. It will all accelerate when AB32 kicks in. I’d predict that California will soon repeat the 1930’s, only this time people will be fleeing en masse for Oklahoma.

This is an interesting video about the shenanigans that go on at CARB under the liberal guise of protecting us, which should be better known by most as fraud. Watch how they are destroying the California economy and killing jobs. I can’t wait until there are no taxpayers left after everyone flees over-regulated and over-taxed California for other states or countries.

California definitely has an over abundance of CO2 Insanity. It starts in Sacramento and spreads it evil tentacales throughout the whole crazy state.